Oil Level Sensor

[Ernie Martin]

They did have it for the ferry flights, but I don't know that it was part of the standard equipment and retained after they got to Vietnam.

For those of you who don't know the story, it was the in-flight oil filling that caused the only ditching in the many aircraft ferried from the U.S. to Vietnam.

Cessna and/or Continental had calculated/estimated the amount of oil burned per hour by these new engines on these very long flights and instituted a procedure for in-flight refilling. One of these aircraft had one engine that, by sheer luck, had an impossibly perfect set of tolerances and burned much less oil, so the refilling led to excess oil, plug fouling and engine stoppage. Because the aircraft was so overweight with additional fuel for the trip, the remaining engine was unable to maintain altitude and the aircraft was ditched. The pilot was rescued.

Ernie